Postsecondary Attendance and SuccessPatterns: An Interview with CliffordAdelmanBy Geoffrey Akst

Geoffrey AkstBorough of Manhattan Comnnunity

College/CUNYEmeritus Professor of Mathematics220 Madison Avenue, Apartment 14CNevi/York, NY 10016gakst@nyc.rr.com

The data also confirm thatpurposeful transfer haspositive results. Nomadicbehavior...does not.

One of this country'smost prominent edu-cation researchers. Dr.Clifford Adelman wasuntil recently a seniorresearch analyst withthe U.S. Departmentof Education. He is theauthor of the Educa-tion Department reportThe Toolbox Revisited:

Paths to Degree Completion from High SchoolThrough College (2006). Other of his publica-tions for the department include: Devaluation,Diffusion and the College Connection: A Studyof High School Transcripts, 1964-1981 {1983),Women at Thirty-Something: Paradoxes of At-tainment (1991), The New College Course Mapand Transcript Files: Changes in Course Takingand Achievement, 1972-1993 (1995 ,̂ Women andMen ofthe Engineering Path: A Model for Anal-yses of Undergraduate Careers (1999}, Answersin the Tool Box (1999), A Parallel PostsecondaryUniverse: The Certification System in Informa-tion Technology (2000), and Principal Indicatorsof Student Academic Histories in PostsecondaryEducation, 1972-2000 (2004). Also the author ofLessons of a Generation: Education and Work inthe Lives ofthe High School Class of 1972 (1994),Dr Adelman now serves as a Senior Associate atthe Washington-based Institute for Higher Educa-tion Policy.

Geoffrey Akst (G.A.): Dr. Adelman, it's a plea-sure to meet you again. I helieve in evidence-based decision-making in education, and you'reone of this country's leading proponents ofthatpoint of view. Could we start by discussing yourTool Box studies? For readers not familiar withyour background, these studies follow a sampleof students from high school into postsecond-ary education, trying to identify which aspectsof their schooling are associated with higher col-lege graduation rates. They also stand out in mymind for their innovative emphasis on transcriptanalysis. What were some of the major conclu-sions you reached in the original Tool Box studyand the more recent replicated study?Clifford Adelman (C.A.): First, these studies

were about students who, following high school,attended a 4-year college at some time, including community college transfers. The dependentvariable was whether they earned a bachelor'sdegree by their mid-to-late 20s. When bachelor'sdegree attainment is the dependent variable, youhave to limit your population to people who ac-tually walked through the door of a school thatoffered those degrees.

The Tool Box studies had a number of majorconclusions: First of all, a student's high schoolrecord, dominated by a high academic inten-sity curriculum, provides the most significantmomentum prior to college entry. It's far moreimportant than what the student looks like. Second, delaying entry to higher education has Üdistinctly negative association with persistenceThird, the most important outcome of a stu-dent's ist year in higher education is earning aileast 20 credits that count toward a degree. Evenpart-time students can do this using the summer term.

There were other important conclusions,Noncontinuous enrollment—meaning stoppingout of college for more than 1 semester—is a kissof death. Also, if students withdraw or repeat20% or more of their courses in college, theyhave a guaranteed kiss of death.

The data also confirm that purposefultransfer has positive results. Nomadic behav-ior—swirling from one school to another—doesnot. Finally, summer term credits add octane toa student's momentum toward degree comple-tion. They have a particularly positive effect forAfrican-American students (though why, I don'tknow).

G. A.: The findings ofthe Tool Box studies provedto be extremely influential, with a number ofhigh-profile analyses and policy initiatives us-ing its analyses for empirical support (eduwonk.com). The studies have been cited in the NewYork Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education,and other prominent publications. Why do youthink the Tool Box studies received such widespread attention?

C.A.: For one thing, up until the first Tool Boxstudy in 1999, most of the conversation and

14 JOURNAL of DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION

research about the relationship between whatstudents did in high school and what happenedto them in higher education was about testscores and grades. Answers in the Tool Box putcurriculum front-and-center. It demonstratedthat what you study is more important. Outof that analysis, state systems began looking attheir high school graduation and college entryrequirements in terms of course work, and wegot the Texas Scholars program—which becamethe State Scholars program modeled on ToolBox—and ultimately, (though nobody acknowl-edges it), the federal Academic Competitivenessgrants.

Secondly, people started paying far more at-tention to college attendance patterns than theyever had previously. Both studies opened up thewhole field by pointing out just how dynamiccollege student attendance patterns are: multi-institutional, interstate, and so forth. People be-came a lot more interested in tracking studentprogress, and that led to the National StudentClearinghouse, the proposals for Unit Records,and state longitudinal studies.

G.A.:Couldyou tick off some of the other inves-tigations that you've conducted of which you'vebeen particularly proud?

CA.: I'll mention a number. Two related stud-ies. Women at Thirty-Something: Paradoxes ofAttainment (1992) and Women and Men of theEngineering Path (1998), helped change the gen-der discussion by demonstrating the contrastbetween women's academic achievement andwhat happens to them on the anvil of the labormarket. The study found that the overall attritionfrom the field after students reach the "thresh-old" of the field is much higher for women thanmen, particularly unfortunate in a field whichhistorically has had a gender imbalance.

Then there was A Parallel Postsecondary Uni-verse (2000), the first study of the certificationmovement in information technology. This re-port described the system of credentiaiing thatarose in the information technology and tele-communications industries over a decade, com-paring this system to traditional higher educa-tion. And finally Moving Into Town—and Mov-ing On: The Community Coilege in the Lives ofTraditional-Age Students (2005), which broughtboth community design theory and migrationtheory to bear on the uses of the communitycollege.

G.A.: A thread that runs through much of yourwork, Dr. Adelman. reflects a concern as to whatextent American high schools are preparingstudents to succeed in college. Do you see anyrelationship between the studies that you've led

and developmental education in postsecondaryinstitutions?

CA.: It's hard to avoid writing about develop-mental education when one studies colleges,particularly community colleges, let alone in thetype of analyses set out in the Tool Box studies.One of the major conclusions of both Tool Boxstudies is that students who are determined tosucceed get through developmental educationand on to earn credentials. So in fancy statisti-cal analyses, the number and timing of creditsin developmental education is not a significantvariable. Where excessive developmental educa-tion course work does turn up, though, is in thatminimum 20 additive-credit yard line in the firstcalendar year of attendance. A part-time studentwho takes nothing but developmental coursesdoesn't have a chance of reaching that goal,

G.A: "The study of mathematics seems to playa special role in your research. In one study,you found that of all high school disciplines.

You cannot perform themajority of jobs withoutone of three types ofmathematics proßciencies,all of which have their rootsin algebra.

the highest level of math that a student studiesin high school significantly affects the student'slikelihood of earning a bachelor's degree Do youthink this means that tbe math preparation stu-dents receive in high school should be of interestbeyond the mathematics community?

CA.: Oh, yes. The world has gone quantitative.You cannot perform the majority of jobs with-out one of three types of mathematics proficien-cies, ail of which have their roots in algebra: (a)statistics, (b) finite/discrete math (the sourceof computer programming), or (c) calculus.The Tool Box studies have shown that math inhigh school is a principal academic engine. Thatmeans that students who get beyond Algebra IIin high school or who earn more than 4 creditsin college-level math are much more likely toearn a baccalaureate degree than students whodon't.

G.A.: Recently, I've heard you argue for non-traditional ways of assessing the effectivenessof colleges and of calculating graduation rates.How does your approach to institutional assess-

ment differ from more traditional approaches?Does your approach have implications for devel-opmental education?

C.A.: Let's focus on the calculation of gradua-tion rates. At the present moment, we countonly those students who enter in the fall term,full-time. That criterion excludes 40% of allbeginning undergraduates and more than 60%of community college entrants. The formulaI proposed in a "Views" piece in Inside HigherEducation on March 12, 2007, whicb was vettedat a number of meetings and has since been re-vised, sanded, and polished, would count part-time students as well as full time and those whoentered in terms other than fall. Regarding de-velopmental education, the formula includes athreshold of more than 6 attempted credits ofany kind (including nonadditive) in the first cal-endar year of enrollment. That is, we don't countstudents who attempted 6 or fewer credits of anykind. A lot of developmental students do not en-ter full time and are not counted now but wouldbe under the formula, provided tbey attemptedmore than 6 credits in that ist year. Why includethis threshold criterion? It sorts out peoplewhose behavior does not indicate intent to con-tinue or attain a degree. It's not fair to include inthe denominator of a graduation rate calculationthe Emergency Medical Technician who comesin to a community college for one course a yearto maintain a license.

G.A.: In your body of research, what conclu-sions were you able to draw that could be helpfulto developmental educators and policy makers?Put another way, what advice would you give topostsecondary institutions trying to better meetthe needs of developmental students?

C.A.: The most serious developmental prob-lem—and the Tool Box studies spent some timeon this—is reading. Students placed in develop-mental reading can't read the math problem ei-ther, let alone the biology textbook or the on-linehistory documents or the instruction manual forconstruction cost estimating software. The levelof reading one needs for the range of tasks onefaces in academic and occupational programs isthat of complex inference. College language artsfaculty tend to know this, and they know howto move students from simple comprehension tosimple inference and then to complex inferencewhen dealing with text. The range of faculty whoare fluent in identifying these stages of readingdevelopment needs to be expanded, and totalimmersion reading courses as early as possiblein a student's postsecondary career should bemandated. This is particularly essential for non-native speakers of English. The guidance and

VOLUME 3 1 , ISSUE 2 • WINTER 2007 15

advising environment has to be straightforwardin telling students that unless they are reading atthis level their chances of learning anything areseverely diminished.

ReferencesAdelman, C. (1982, November). Devaluation, dif-

fusion and the college connection: A study ofhigh school transcripts, 1964-1981. Paper pre-sented at a Meeting ofthe National Commis-sion on Excellence in Education, Washington,DC.

Adelman, C. (1991). Women at thirty-something:Paradoxes of attainment. Washington, DC;U.S. Department of Education.

Adelman, C. (1994). Lessons of a generation: Edu-cation and work in the lives ofthe high schoolclass 0/1972. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Adelman, C. {1995}. The new college course mapand transcript files: Changes in course takingand achievement, 1972-1993. Washington, DC;U.S. Department of Education, Office of Edu-cational Research and Improvement.

Adelman, C. (1999). Answers in the tool box: Aca-

demic intensity, attendance patterns, and bach-elor's degree attainment. Washington, DC: U.S.Department of Education.

Adelman, C. {1999). Women and men ofthe en-gineering path: A model for analyses of under-graduate careers. Washington, DC; U.S. Cov-ernment Printing Office.

Adelman, C. (2000). A parallel postsecondary uni-verse: The certification system in informationtechnology. Washington, DC; US. Departmentof Education.

Adelman, C. (2004). Principal indicators of studentacademic histories in postsecondary education,1972-2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Departmentof Education. Retrieved December 19, 2007,from http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/prinindicat/index.html

Adelman, C. (2005). Moving into town—andmoving on: The community college in the livesof traditional-age students. Washington, DC:U.S. Department of Education.

Adelman, C. (2006). The toolbox revisited: Pathsto degree completion from high school throughcollege 2006. Washington. DC; U.S. Depart-ment of Education. Retrieved December 19,

2007, from http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/re-search/pubs/toolboxrevisit/toolbox.pdf

Adelman, C. (2007, March 12). Making graduationrates matter. Inside Higher Education. Views.Retrieved December 19, 2007, from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/03/12/adelman v*

Call for proposals available NOWVisit www.ncde.appstate.edu/

researchconf3.htm

^üue ^̂ ^̂

4th International Conferenceon Research in Access andDevelopmental Education

September 24-27, 2008

San Juan, Puetto Rico

NADE News: NADE 2008 Conference in Boston:Developmental Education: The New Revolution'

By Géraldine L. McBroom, NADE President

The National Association for Developmental Education will hold itsannual conference in Boston, Massachusetts, February zj through March1, 2008. "Ihe conference hotel, the Marriott Copley Place, is located in thebeautiful Back Bay area of Boston, the heart of American democracy.

The Learning Assistance Association of New England (LAANE) is theNADE chapter sponsoring the conference. They have chosen the confer-ence theme "Developmental Education: The New Revolution" and thelogo which incorporates the Leonard Zakim/Bunker Hill Bridge and PaulReveres ride. The NADE Executive Board agrees that the theme and logoappropriately represent NADE as an organization as well as the work ofdevelopmental educators:

• NADE and developmental educators are bridge builders.

• NADE members have revolutionary attitudes about students, howmuch they can excel, and what they will accomplish.

• NADE members are committed, even in the face of challenge, to devel-opmental education: helping students prepare, advance, and excel.

The conference begins on Wednesday with Pre-Conference Institutesand the Leadership Congress. Wednesday evening's Conference GrandOpening includes a special welcome for newcomers. From Thursday

through Saturday, participants may choose from over 150 concurrent andposter sessions with topics covering 15 different conference strands. Alsoincluded in the excellent program are tours of Boston, extended hours atthe exhibit hall, and keynote addresses by Steven Brookfield, DistinguishedUniversity Professor at the University of St. Thomas, and Dr. PelonomiKhumoetsile-Taylor, Director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion alBunker Hill Community Coliege.

Contributions of NADE's Special Interest Networks (SPINs), com-mittees, and chapters are being highlighted during the conference withsessions specifically set aside so that participants may attend these meet-ings—whether they are currently members or not—to learn about thework of these groups.

The NADE 2008 conference is designed to promote professional re-newal and growth for the builders of students' dreams in a city represent-ing the dreams of American democracy. More conference informationand registration materials may be found on the NADE Web site: www.nade2008.net. Those unable to attend the national conference might in-vestigate local chapter conferences on the NADE Web site, www.nade.net,under "Chapter Conference Dates."

NADE: Helping underprepared students prepare, prepared students advance, and advanced students excel!

National Association for Developmental Education (NADE) • 500 N Estrella Parkway Ste B2 PMB 412 . Goodyear, AZ 85338 • www.nade.net

16 JOURNAL 0/DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION